Sri Lankan President Sirisena assures hoteliers maximum financial help to revive tourism
Colombo: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has assured hoteliers that the government will give them maximum financial relief to revive the lucrative tourism industry hit by the country's worst terror attack on Easter Sunday that killed 253 people, including 40 foreigners.
Tourism accounts for about five per cent of Sri Lanka's economy, with India, Britain and China being the main markets. India is the largest source market for Sri Lanka, which received 2.3 million tourists from around the world in 2018.
Around 450,000 Indian tourists visited Sri Lanka last year and the island nation was expecting the total Indian tourist arrivals to cross one million in 2019.
President Sirisena acknowledged during his meeting on Monday with the country's hoteliers that the tourism and hotel industries were worst hit after the string of powerful blasts ripped through three churches and as many luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, killing 253 people and injuring more than 500 others.
The bombs tore through three five-star hotels in Colombo: the Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri La and the Kingsbury. Forty foreigners, including 11 Indian nationals, died in the attacks.
Sirisena requested Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy to provide "maximum financial relief" immediately to the hoteliers, Sunday Times reported.
Hotels Association President Sanath Ukwatte said hoteliers had invested large sums of money in the development of the hotels and requested the government to provide a moratorium or waiver on the capital and interest for a period of at least two years.
During the meeting, the hoteliers also asked the government to hire the services of a professional public relations and communications unit to send out one message to the world.
President Sirisena agreed to appoint a Cabinet sub-committee to look into the requirements of the hoteliers, the report said.
The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Ministers, ministry officials and members of the industry.
The Easter Sunday blasts were the first time that tourists were specifically targeted. Following the bombings, the US, Britain, Australia, India and Israel warned their nationals against visiting Sri Lanka.
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera recently told reporters that tourism will be the worst affected. "We expect a 30 per cent drop in arrivals and that means a loss of about USD 1.5 billion in foreign exchange," Samaraweera said, adding that the country could take up to two years to fully recover from the deadly bombings which shattered a decade of peace in the country.
Mount Lavinia Hotel south of the capital, a popular site for the tourists, has said there have been a large number of cancellations.
Galle Face Hotel top official Chandra Mohotti also said "there will be huge cancellations". In his first reaction to Sunday's blasts, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said tourism industry will be hit by the blasts.
"There will be a downward trend, Tourism will get affected. There may be fund outflows," Wickremesinghe said. The industry officials said the rebound from the attacks would depend on the security measures to be adopted.
Sri Lanka's tourism industry faced a difficult time until a decade ago due to the three-decade civil war with the LTTE which claimed at least 100,000 lives. However, in the recent years the island nation has emerged as a top tourist destination in Asia.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
